TEDA board seeks ‘positive’ solution with parish
October 22, 2013Gifts from the past
October 22, 2013In this week’s edition of the Tri-Parish Times, staff writer Claudette Olivier penned an investigative piece detailing domestic violence cases within the area.
The numbers are all on display within the piece, so we’ll refrain from bombarding one with statistics within this editorial.
But within the story’s text, Ms. Olivier details that in Terrebonne Parish, domestic violence cases have sharply risen with felony cases having tripled to 77 in the 10 months of the 2013 calendar year.
The story states that a total of 525 cases have been reported in 2013.
In Lafourche Parish, 404 cases of domestic violence were reported in the year 2012. St. Mary Parish isn’t immune from the problem and saw 78 arrests within the parish’s sheriff’s office in the last year.
That’s 1,000 cases in a year across three parishes.
Following this same metric, one can conclude that authorities investigate a domestic violence every, single day.
This may not seem too out of the ordinary. But what about the calls that are never made?
Just because authorities are not called to a particular home, that does not mean that domestic violence is not taking place in our community or neighborhood.
A big problem that victims cope with is fear. They struggle to contemplate life once the offense is reported. They are often fearful of life without the other person around. Other times, they fear for their safety if things go from bad to worse.
No matter the motivating factors, domestic violence is a very real thing that affects very real people.
If you are a victim, please come forward and give your story to authorities.
As this week’s story details, there are many outlets available that are designed for people in those shoes.
Parties can seek counseling and other assistance – all designed to remedy problems in as easy a solution as possible.
If you are not a victim, but suspect that something may not be OK within a household, please speak up and let someone know.
Probably the worst thing that someone can do when these situations arises is nothing.
It’s better to be safe than sorry, and no one wants to be the person that sees someone that they know in the newspaper – injured because of one’s failure to report suspicion that may have arisen from that household.
